Is your love HyperQBic?
Does it have the colorpuntal pearls of a ghost poem?
Here we go again.
I’m not thirsty, you’re thirsty
A TRACE OF IMPROVISATION
AS MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
“Didn’t I tell you what I believe,
did somebody say that . . .”
Sade
Was I wrong
to believe what you whispered
or seemed to whisper
in my ear?
Apophenia,
once my neck
knew nothing
except the lines
of Phrygian prayer
your magenta lips
traced at its nape
and my nipples
knew nothing except
the cornsilk brush
of your fingers
under our sheets.
Once, I knelt
beside you nightly
to pray
to repeat back
your red carnation
& blue jasmine psalm
— a hummingbird
hovering for nectar.
But all moons wane
and because
I failed
to heed your wrists
double need
for velvet-lined
police bracelets
and obsidian
prayer beads
your fingers
now trace
another man’s tattoos.
And not wane
as failure
but a decrescendo
in the key of F
which I hum
under my atheist breath.
Was our last adieu
a riff that resolved
in F flat
or a phrase in the bass
to loop my faith
into a fugue in the rain?
Who knows
what any religion
requires beyond belief?
Perhaps,
I believe nothing—
but some nights
the outer ear
of the moon
seems to find me
tuning my carnation
& cornflower guitar
to the notes
of jasmine
that remain
in our blankets
and sheets.
